Advantages of thread-safe agents

Threading offers the following advantages over serial agents:

• Computer resources on Domino® Web servers are used more efficiently.
• The system allows concurrent use by many people.
• The client/server programming model can be used.

Domino® Release 4.5.1 and later supports multiple Web agents, allowing each LotusScript® agent to run in a separate thread in the same process. In Domino®, if multiple users activate Web agents simultaneously and the server is not thread-enabled, the agents will be serialized. To enable Domino® synchronized agents, see the section "Running asynchronous agents on the Domino® server."

Agents run serially

In this example, User A's agent had control over the server until it completed. User B saw no activity until Agent 1 was finished.

Time	Operation	Comments
0		User A activates Agent 1.
1	Compute	Agent 1 starts. User B activates Agent 2.
2	Compute	Agent 1 running.
3	Compute	Agent 1 running.
4	Compute	Agent 1 running.
5	Print	Agent 1 ends.
6	Compute	Start User B's Agent 2.
7	Print	Agent 2 ends.

Threaded agents

In this example, User B sees results sooner. User A sees response later, but the time difference is not noticeable.

Time	Thread1	Thread2	Comments
0			User A activates Agent 1.
1	Compute		Agent 1 starts. User B activates Agent B.
2	Compute		Agent 1 running.
3		Compute	Agent 1 swapped out. Agent 2 starts.
4		Print	Agent 2 ends.
5	Compute		Agent 1 running.
6	Compute		Agent 1 running.
7	Print		Agent 1 ends.